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Re: What bottle is best for a breastfed baby on strike

How does she do with a cup? While you might not be able to have an awake nursing, you might be able to put supplemental feedings in a sippy cup and she might be willing to do more sucking at the breast.

I totally feel what you are saying. My fourth child will not nurse, and he flips if I even offer a breast

Re: What bottle is best for a breastfed baby on strike

How does she do with a cup? While you might not be able to have an awake nursing, you might be able to put supplemental feedings in a sippy cup and she might be willing to do more sucking at the breast.

I totally feel what you are saying. My fourth child will not nurse, and he flips if I even offer a breast

I did try with a sippy with a hard spout. I haven't tried with a soft one tho. When I tried with the hard spout she did suck on it a little and got some but just let it dribble out her mouth, but it was with day old milk which smelled soapy so I don't know if it was because of the taste or what.

I do feel like my supply is good. Maybe even still teetering on oversupply. And the night nursing are extra good for my supply I think. I ordered a scale so I can keep a good eye on things. She poops once a day and has 6 or so wets. But since the pedi is not worried and doesn't want us back for a month, I don't want any surprises or freakouts from them if she hasn't gained a whole bunch. She is truly so energetic she's just a slow gainer to begin with, but she burns through her calories. I bet she crawls before six months!

Re: What bottle is best for a breastfed baby on strike

Originally Posted by @llli*midwestmama2010

She takes prolly three naps a day. She won't nurse to sleep. I'm serious when I say she freaks. If I could post a video I would. And I've read all that stuff about "seducing" them back to the breast and not letting them get mad.

Sometimes, she wakes up while she's nursing and gives me this incredulous look, pops off and inserts her thumb and puts herself back to sleep. That's what happened the other day. She kept waking up, so not only was she not getting enough milk, and only foremilk, but she didn't get enough sleep either. So she got a few catnaps.

I always hear something different about the number of feedings they need. She hasn't nursed normally in two months so I don't really know what her habits are as a four month old. I wait until she's chomping her hand and wiggling around, breathing fast, maybe even squealing just a little. But of course if she's asleep I just nurse her. The IBCLC had me feeling like I wasn't reading her cues right. Most times, I hear that 4 month olds nurse every two hours during the day. To me that's like 8 to 8, so that's 6 feedings and then at least one at night. My LLL leader said not to let her go more than 4 hours at night.

Sometimes even at night, she pops off after my milk letsdown. It's still pretty strong I think. I was doing blockfeeding but I almost felt like it was getting worse, like more pressure was building up.

Just now, she only took an ounce from the bottle. But she was sleepy, so she's napping now.

I would love your thoughts. I feel like I've exhausted everyone I know IRL.

Well first of all I am sorry that you are dealing with this. AND I applaud you staying at it. Seriously. Because I understand that A LOT of what goes on in a strike is very very painful emotionally for the mother because its hard not to take it as a personal rejection. And based on everything you have written when you are getting different advice and trying everything and clearly BLAMING YOURSELF I am amazed and PLEASED with your persarverence. And it IS 8-8. Or 6-6. But it's 8 am till 8am the NEXT DAY. NOT that night. And if you do have An abundance of milk and a forceful letdown you probably are getting her more milk than you think. And I think you can comfortably go 3hours between feedings with a 4month old. They are a little bigger at that point. But if she is taking 3 naps a day is there ever a period of longer than 3hours where she isn't sleeping anyway?
My advice is don't panic, keep at it and do the math. Because I talk to mothers ALL. THE. TIME who are panicking thinking their striking babies aren't getting enough. They want to supplement or wean and then we count up all the dream feeding that is happening they realize that their babies aren't starving. And that while it IS emotionally taxing to be rejected by your awake child, it's still easier and healthier to do the dream feeds. They work on instinct when they sleep and her instinct is to latch and nurse. So tomorrow Starting at 8am or Whenever start keeping track of exactly how many feeds she is getting in a 24hour period. At the very least I think it will make you stop panicking and thinking you really aren't feeding her enough in her sleep. I bet that you are. Stay focused Mama. You can get through this!

Re: What bottle is best for a breastfed baby on strike

I am not telling YOU what to do, just telling you what I did. My DD2 had this same thing at about 4 months. Um....I made a decision and it for sure isn't every one's choice of what to do.

But, I decided to just stay home for a week-not go to the grocery store or any where at all. I made a bottle (of my expressed milk) and would set down and try to nurse her, she would freak too! (not even dream feed!), I would calm her down by patting her back (a LOT!) and giving her just a little bit of the bottle, then offer her the breast again. I wouldn't let her finish a feed with the bottle really. I would just keep on even with her craziness offering her the breast. If I could pat her back at the same time, it really helped. It took about a week for her to stop freaking. And she would pull out her hair and every thing. And I even literally wanted to pull out my own hair. I was crying she was crying. It was upsetting. But, I hated EPing for DD1, so I was determined to make it work. By day six or seven, she converted, and I never gave her another bottle. And she nursed for over one year. She's still very clingy at 2 and I believe if I hadn't gotten pregnant she would of kept on nursing, but she didn't like the low supply I got during pregnancy and would no longer nurse after that. I know some people don't believe in doing it how I did. But, personally I am so happy I did and I didn't have to EP again. And we still have a awesome relationship.

Re: What bottle is best for a breastfed baby on strike

Hi. This response comes a few days after your post so you may already have figured things out. I used the medela calma bottle, which worked well - same sucking action as for breast required. But bottles were not really the answer for me when my baby went on a nursing strike. My lactation consultant advised spending a few hours during the day (as much as you can manage) doing kangaroo care/holding baby skin-to-skin. This worked wonders! We struggled with breastfeeding and so she would often do these strikes on and off, but since doing the kangaroo care we have never looked back! She's 9 months now and drinks well, and takes the bottle occassionally when necessary.
Good Luck!

Re: What bottle is best for a breastfed baby on strike

Originally Posted by @llli*djs.mom

Well first of all I am sorry that you are dealing with this. AND I applaud you staying at it. Seriously. Because I understand that A LOT of what goes on in a strike is very very painful emotionally for the mother because its hard not to take it as a personal rejection. And based on everything you have written when you are getting different advice and trying everything and clearly BLAMING YOURSELF I am amazed and PLEASED with your persarverence. And it IS 8-8. Or 6-6. But it's 8 am till 8am the NEXT DAY. NOT that night. And if you do have An abundance of milk and a forceful letdown you probably are getting her more milk than you think. And I think you can comfortably go 3hours between feedings with a 4month old. They are a little bigger at that point. But if she is taking 3 naps a day is there ever a period of longer than 3hours where she isn't sleeping anyway?
My advice is don't panic, keep at it and do the math. Because I talk to mothers ALL. THE. TIME who are panicking thinking their striking babies aren't getting enough. They want to supplement or wean and then we count up all the dream feeding that is happening they realize that their babies aren't starving. And that while it IS emotionally taxing to be rejected by your awake child, it's still easier and healthier to do the dream feeds. They work on instinct when they sleep and her instinct is to latch and nurse. So tomorrow Starting at 8am or Whenever start keeping track of exactly how many feeds she is getting in a 24hour period. At the very least I think it will make you stop panicking and thinking you really aren't feeding her enough in her sleep. I bet that you are. Stay focused Mama. You can get through this!

Thank you. I would never wean at 4 months. Never. I would do anything to nurse my baby and give her only human milk. I do believe that she will come out of it one day and I can nurse her when she's alert, but until then, I'm going to keep doing this. It's been two months. I can do this two more months, and another two more if I have to. At 1st when she began, she wasn't getting enough IMO, because her diaper count dipped, and her weight gain was craaawwling and my milk wouldn't letdown when she would nurse because I was a nervous wreck. Sadly, now, I've adjusted and it's become a way of life. I dare say I'm good at it now.

And I already keep track. I have a log. And I'm hitting 8,9, or even 10 feeds sometimes, that's counting maybe like one 1 oz. or 2 oz. bottle of expressed milk a day for when she's alert and hungry.

I'm not sure I understand your question about her naps, but she essentially is ready to lay down when she's been up for about 2 hours. sometimes an hour and a half.

But I mess her up sometimes when I nurse her in her sleep and then she wakes up. Sometimes I feel as if she doesn't get all the daytime sleep she needs.

The hardest part of this whole thing has been how little time I get to spend with my toddler throughout the day since I'm sneaking off to feed the baby 3 or 4 times a day and then researching and checking back here to see if anyone has the magic answer.

Re: What bottle is best for a breastfed baby on strike

Originally Posted by @llli*djs.mom

And it IS 8-8. Or 6-6. But it's 8 am till 8am the NEXT DAY. NOT that night.

I meant I feed her every two hours from 8am to 8pm, and then prolly like 3 times from 8pm to 8am. She starts stirring and then I put her to breast. Occasionally she does even look up at me, and I have hope that she will remember she likes to nurse, and then she falls back asleep but keeps nursing.

Re: What bottle is best for a breastfed baby on strike

My lactation consultant advised spending a few hours during the day (as much as you can manage) doing kangaroo care/holding baby skin-to-skin. This worked wonders! Good Luck!

I've been doing this too for the last two months. It hasn't worked wonders for us yet. She prefers to face out in the Moby. The other challenge is how busy and social she is already. We also co-sleep skin-to-skin most nights. The Tommee Tippee is working for when we have to do it, like once a day, and she only takes a little bit from it anyway, and I'm doing paced bottle feeding when we use it to help her not have a flow preference.

Re: What bottle is best for a breastfed baby on strike

I am not telling YOU what to do, just telling you what I did. My DD2 had this same thing at about 4 months. Um....I made a decision and it for sure isn't every one's choice of what to do.

But, I decided to just stay home for a week-not go to the grocery store or any where at all. I made a bottle (of my expressed milk) and would set down and try to nurse her, she would freak too! (not even dream feed!), I would calm her down by patting her back (a LOT!) and giving her just a little bit of the bottle, then offer her the breast again. I wouldn't let her finish a feed with the bottle really. I would just keep on even with her craziness offering her the breast. If I could pat her back at the same time, it really helped. It took about a week for her to stop freaking. And she would pull out her hair and every thing. And I even literally wanted to pull out my own hair. I was crying she was crying. It was upsetting. But, I hated EPing for DD1, so I was determined to make it work. By day six or seven, she converted, and I never gave her another bottle. And she nursed for over one year. She's still very clingy at 2 and I believe if I hadn't gotten pregnant she would of kept on nursing, but she didn't like the low supply I got during pregnancy and would no longer nurse after that. I know some people don't believe in doing it how I did. But, personally I am so happy I did and I didn't have to EP again. And we still have a awesome relationship.

This is what I would love to do if I had a good support system. I don't really have anyone to help with my two y/o during the day. I try not to go anywhere. My 2 y/o has a standing speech therapy appt every week and an occupational therapy appt every other week. I haven't been to church in weeks or my Bible study group. I did try to go to my SIL's house for a girls card game night, but ended up coming home after about 30 minutes when baby freaked.

If I could just lay around ALL day with her mostly naked for prolly a week straight and not have to feed anyone but myself or do any laundry, I do feel confident she would come out of it. I quit cloth diapering for now to eliminate some responsibility. My husband goes to community college two nights a week, and takes two online courses in addition to the one physical class he has. My MIL would like to "help", but she just comes over and seems to need to be entertained and wants to give me these worried looks all the time. If she would come over and just take over and not talk to me about her job, then it would be helping, but instead, she goes on and on completely missing the point of helping. She also can only stay like an hour and a half which doesn't help. It just enough time to mess up our nightly routine and have my toddler meltdown and be uncooperative for about 20 minutes after she leaves. I finally asked her to quit coming. It was basically just like a visit, ya know??

Nursing is relatively new to my family. Everyone quits. I don't believe my MIL even tried with her twins. But that was 35 years ago, when ppl believed a mother couldn't make enough milk for two, so she prolly believed it too. Basically, nursing is just not that important to them, so they think we're crazy for doing this.

She also doesn't really "hear" me. For two years now, I've been going to LLL meetings. Evey single month. When my husband asked her to come and help because the baby was not nursing well, she asked if we had heard of A Leeecha (like alacarte). That they may be able to help. Are you kidding me? She hasn't been listening for two years! My husband corrected her and said, "yes, she's a member, she goes to the meetings, they (my local) have done all they can."

My mom is no help either. She's in her own little second marriage bubble. And her hubby is like 25 years older than her, in his 70s and she won't leave him to do ANYTHING by herself. He just comes and reads the paper and sits and doesn't speak.

phewww! I guess I needed to grip about that for a little bit!! LOL

My LO won't ever take more than 1 oz or 2 from the bottle. HOWEVER, as often as I'm dreamfeeding her, that may be about all she takes in at a feeding. Don't they say about 25 oz. in a 24 hour period?

I haven't tried alternating the breast and bottle like that in one sitting. Your baby didn't feel pressured by you offering the breast so many times in one sitting? I guess not if it finally worked after a week, right?

If I could coordinate it, like schedule someone to be here with my toddler for a week during the day when DH is at work, then maybe I could make that happen. But I need soemoen that won't bug me, you know? Not ask me 20 questions about her lunch. Just DO IT. And take her to appts and outdoors to play, etc. And not ask me every 20 minutes "did the baby nurse?" My mom can't be bothered before 10 am and my MIL works 7:30-4:30 I think. And my mom has a dog that she's always having to get back to let out.